Gerd Leonhard’s thoughts, finds and other comments on the future of ethics in a digital world

“According to Robert Lustig, there has been a fundamental error or even a system fallacy in the way the Americans understand the “pursuit of happiness.” A philosophical principle that was firmly established by Jefferson.

We can see that happiness has been mixed up with pleasure. People got the toxic message that happiness can be bought, exchanging pleasure for happiness. The fast-food industry explicitly stresses that you can buy ”happiness.” Also on the internet and in the daily language, we see a complete confusion of these fundamentally different concepts.”

“Real life is slow; it takes professionals time to figure out what happened, and how it fits into context. Technology is fast. Smartphones and social networks are giving us facts about the news much faster than we can make sense of them, letting speculation and misinformation fill the gap.

It has only gotten worse. As news organizations evolved to a digital landscape dominated by apps and social platforms, they felt more pressure to push news out faster. Now, after something breaks, we’re all buzzed with the alert, often before most of the facts are in. So you’re driven online not just to find out what happened, but really to figure it out.”

“The report found that while automation is requiring workers to maintain technical fluency across roles, the rise of machine-led tasks makes it necessary for them to do what machines can’t, which is to be adaptable, critical thinkers who can lead and communicate well.”

“As AI plays a bigger role in systems that affect social outcomes—like criminal justice, education, hiring, or health care—it’s clear that the creation and shape of AI decision-making needs to be taken seriously. What happens when algorithms decide whether or not you get a job, home, or loan?”

“Meanwhile, Facebook and Google (now known as Alphabet) are together worth $1.3 trillion. You could merge the world’s top five advertising agencies (WPP, Omnicom, Publicis, IPG, and Dentsu) with five major media companies (Disney, Time Warner, 21st Century Fox, CBS, and Viacom) and still need to add five major communications companies (AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Charter, and Dish) to get only 90 percent of what Google and Facebook are worth together.”

“I’ve warned for a long time that organizations — whether societies or corporations or political parties — must focus, in this troubled, fractured age, on mattering to people: really improving and transforming their lives. The “backlash” tech faces now is what happens when you don’t. More accurately put, people and societies are losing trust in tech, catastrophically. Why is that?”

“In the world of the future, automated perfection is going to be common. Machines will bake perfect cakes, perfectly schedule appointments and keep an eye on your house. What is going to be scarce is human imperfection.”

“The predator in American society isn’t just its super-rich — but an invisible and insatiable force: the normalization of what in the rest of the world would be seen as shameful, historic, generational moral failures, if not crimes, becoming mere mundane everyday affairs not to be too worried by or troubled about.”

“If you think you’ll be able to waltz down to your local dealership and plunk down money for a self-driving car, you’ll be disappointed, however. The sensor suite that allows these cars to “see” their environment, combined with the compute hardware eating up a lot of space in the trunk, are really, really expensive. Most automakers are operating under the assumption that autonomous cars won’t be sold as personal vehicles, but instead will be used as part of a service fleet.”

Digital Ethics by Futurist Gerd Leonhard

Gerd Leonhard, Futurist and Humanist, Author, Keynote Speaker, CEO The Futures Agency, Zurich / Switzerland
Gerd Leonhard is a hunter and gatherer of human values from the future. From culture and society to commerce and technology, Gerd brings back the news from the future so business and society leaders can make better choices right now. In his latest book, Technology vs Humanity, Gerd explores the key ethical and social questions which urgently require an answer before we increasingly abdicate our very humanity. For organizations in the grip of disruption, Gerd supplies visionary insights and concentrated wisdom that informs key decisions makers today. A musician by origin, Gerd Leonhard has now redefined the vocation of futurist as a new humanist.
Gerd was listed as one of the top 100 influencers in technology by Wired magazine (2015).